(Updated to include second week in Los Angeles)
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Finally, Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind will make its highly-anticipated debut Friday, November 2, on Netflix.
It will be available to 137 million Netflix subscribers in 190 countries, giving Welles the mass audience he longed for in life. It will be streamed alongside Morgan Neville’s companion feature-length documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and Ryan Suffern’s 38-minute documentary short A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making.
(Details, including a free one-month subscription to Netflix, may be found at https://www.netflix.com/title/80085566)
Most will watch this Wellesian triple feature on TV screens, tablets, laptops and smartphones since the completed feature’s run in theaters will be brief and limited to a dozen cinemas in eight states. (It will also run at several Curzon Cinemas in England.)
Prior its theatrical release, The Other Side of the Wind played in nearly 20 cities worldwide at special screenings following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31.
The limited theatrical release is not a surprise since Netflix is a streaming service and its successful business model is based on selling subscriptions, not theater tickets. (A physical home video release is planned farther down the road.)
For those lucky few, here is where The Other Side of the Wind will have a theatrical run:
- Los Angeles ― Laemmle North Hollywood ― November 2-8
- Los Angeles ― Laemmle Glendale Theatre ― November 9-15
- New York ― IFC Center ― November 2-8
- Columbus, Ohio ― Gateway Film Center ― November 2-8
- Austin ― Alamo Mueller ― November 2-8
- San Antonio ― Alamo North Park ― November 2-8
- Dallas ― Alamo Lake Highlands ― November 2-8
- Denver ― Alamo Sloane ― November 2-8
- Ann Arbor, Michigan ― Michigan Theater ― November 2-8
- Portland, Oregon ― Hollywood Theatre ― November 2-8
Also, a shorter theatrical run for the film is scheduled at the following cinemas:
- San Francisco ― Roxie Theater― November 2-4 and November 10
- Chicago― The Music Box ― November 3-4
- Cleveland – Cleveland Cinematheque― November 3-5
In addition, it will be shown at the Virginia Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival on Sunday, November 4, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Sunday, November 11. (The film will also be screened at the Tahoe Film Festival on December 9.)
The Other Side of the Wind takes place at the 70th birthday party of maverick director J.J. “Jake” Hannaford (John Huston), who is struggling to complete his comeback film during the rise of New Hollywood. Attending the party are successful young directors, like Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), hangers-on and critics. Hannaford dies at the conclusion of the party. Welles’ movie recounts Hannaford’s final hours using a mix of 16mm and 35mm color and black-and-white film shot at the party, along with scenes from his unfinished movie.
Welles shot The Other Side of the Wind between 1970 and 1976. It remained unedited and unreleased until 2018 when it was completed for Netflix by producers Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall, executive producer Bogdanovich and Academy Award winning editor Bob Murawski.
Netflix and those four gentleman deserve the lion’s share of the credit for making this a reality, but we would be remiss not to thank the rights holders: Oja Kodar, Beatrice Welles and the family of the late Mehdi Boushehri for agreeing to the completion.
Thanks to the Volunteers in Service to Orson Welles, who labored during the 1970s shoot: Marshall, Bogdanovich, Gary Graver, Larry Jackson, Joseph McBride, Peter Jason, Eric Sherman, Pat McMahon, R. Michael Stringer, Mike Ferris, Polly Platt, Sally Stringer, Louis Race, and many, many more. The cast included such Welles loyalists as Paul Stewart, Mercedes McCambridge and Norman Foster, as well as Huston, Lilli Palmer, Bob Random, Cameron Mitchell, Tonio Selwart, John Caroll, and a host of others.
VISTOW: The Next Generation, assembled by Marshall, Rymsza and Bogdanovich to complete the movie, included not only Murawski, but such talented people as Ruth Hasty, Mo Henry, Dov Samuel, Scott Millan, Gregg Rudloff, Daniel Saxlid, John Knoll, Joe Ceballos, Brian Meanley, Michel Legrand, Ellen Segal, Alyssa Swanzey and Frank Lomento.
Thanks to all for making this a reality.
“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army” ― Orson Welles
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